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Posts Tagged ‘Thoughts’

Just finished Ottawa Comiccon and it was a blast! Saw LeVar Burton, missed Billy Dee Williams because they moved his panel up at short notice 😦 but did get to see Jewel Staite, hear Summer Glau (lost passport = sad pandas but the apology video and panel call-in were nice touches), Nathan Fillion, and Wil Wheaton, all of whom were terrific.

The Con organizers did a good job this year, and thankfully had a huge tent waiting to protect us all from rain. Way to go, everyone, had a great time:) And as it is Mother’s Day, let me just say thank you to to my own mother, who helped me become the sort of person who spends Sunday mornings with people who dress up in tights!

I’m so going in costume next year.

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I’m still busy, mostly with non-writing work, and that makes it harder to focus on being creative than I’d like. That said, you just have to knuckle down and do it. Even when you’re stuck. Even when your work is hard.

Queue this quote. As the Harvard article cited below says, Maya Angelou has been a “cook, streetcar conductor, waitress, singer, dancer, editor, teacher, civil rights organizer, and actress” and oh yes, a writer. If anyone knows how to live a courageous life filled with productive creativity, she’s it.

I realized that one isn’t born with courage. One develops it by doing small courageous things—in the way that if one sets out to pick up a 100-pound bag of rice, one would be advised to start with a five-pound bag, then 10 pounds, then 20 pounds, and so forth, until one builds up enough muscle to lift the 100-pound bag. It’s the same way with courage. You do small courageous things that require some mental and spiritual exertion….

I understood early that not everything I did was going to be a masterpiece, but I would try to do it the best I knew how. I’ve listened to an inner voice and had enough courage to try unknown things.
— Maya Angelou

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Today I’m going to pass along a great piece of advice from Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn series and many other excellent books. It helps when I don’t feel like writing (or more likely this month, when I think I have too much to do).

 

“Sit in a chair and write,” Sanderson says.“Ignore this thing they call writer’s block. Doctors don’t get doctor’s block; your mechanic doesn’t get mechanic’s block. If you want to write great stories, learn to write when you don’t feel like it. You have to write it poorly before you can write it well. So just be willing to write bad stories in order to learn to become better.”
— Brandon Sanderson (as quoted here)

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Last night I was facing down a story that’s had me stymied for a while, a tedious rewrite I wasn’t sure was going to work. That uncertainty took up so much brain space I didn’t have the energy to actually write. I finally remembered that the best way around that sort of questioning is to turn off my critical brain, or at least keep it busy in another room. So I put on some music, loud, and sang along while editing.

That’s how I finished my dissertation. Something about the singing ties up my internal editor; he’s too busy trying to get the song words right to nitpick over the written words. There’s probably a neurological explanation for this but whatever, it works for me:)

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This is a great bit by Ira Glass on Art, and how you have to keep working at it if you’re going to be any good… even when you know that what you’re doing isn’t as good as you wish.
 

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To Make Mice Smarter, Add A Few Human Brain Cells

… because there’s absolutely no way that can go wrong;)

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I’m fiddling. I have several stories in progress, some of which are really quite close to completion, or should be. Except that I’m fiddling. I’m spending way too much time trying to get it “right” and not enough time trying to get the work done. Because it’s never going to be perfect.

Parkinson’s law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

What I really need is a deadline.

Perhaps I should decree March my personal “Short Story Finishing Month,” or ShoStoFiMo. Yes, that should do nicely.

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** This happened in November but it fits so perfectly with my current mood that I decided to post it today.**

It was a fine day, although just before I started work on my novel the cat got out of the yard and I ended up with sixteen bandages and a lot of bleeding. Nothing too horrific, just lots of scratches and some annoying flaps of skin, but I am now pleased to know that I am the sort of person who can have four bandaids on one hand and still write almost 3,000 words. It was actually really satisfying, I must say.

That brings to mind a Neil Gaiman quote that I hope serves you as well as it has me:

“When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Finish the damn story. You’ll be happy you did.

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photo by Benimoto on Flickr

photo by Benimoto on Flickr

I’m writing. How’s it going? Not bad, considering. Ann Patchett has a terrific essay called The Getaway Car. One particularly telling passage details her view of writing. While the work is in her head it is perfect, she says, a beautiful, multi-dimensional butterfly in the most magical and vibrant colors. The problem with bringing the story into being is that she has to take that gorgeous creature and smash it onto a black and white page, a two-dimensional and wholly inadequate representation of the original.

It made me laugh and want to cry because I know exactly what she means.

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I know, in internet years Kid President is past retirement age by now. I don’t care. I tried to ignore this video for a whole week but finally broke down, and I’m glad I did. This kid is great, and his message is even better. Watch it. And be awesome.

 

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